Fuochi incrociati

At the time of my review IMDB shows a score of 7 for this dross. Absolutely impossible. The plot is lazy and implausible, the acting is pathetic, particularly Oliver Reed, who was abviously just marking time on this movie. The dialouge is embarrasingly bad. Did I talk about the plot? A bunch of college girls are kidnapped by an army - the girls turn out to be experts in combat, guns, grenades etc., and proceed to overthrow the army of men, run by the evil Oliver Reed (who adopts one of the worst accents you will ever here a professional actor use)

My score of 4 is genererous, but reflects that it's a movie you should see for a laugh on a boozy Saturday after the pub.

Oliver Reed (cashing another paycheck and having a nice vacation at the same time, I presume) plays a powerful ex-general / drug dealer / dictator of a fictional South American country, who kidnaps the daughter of his long-time nemesis Robert Vaughn, along with a bunch of other college girls, and keeps them captive on his camp in the middle of a jungle. He threatens to kill them if the US government doesn't release his son, who is imprisoned in America. But four of the girls manage to steal some machine guns and use them to escape, and Reed has to track them down before they find a radio and expose his location.

"Fair Trade" is near-rock-bottom girls-and-guns fare. The girls themselves are brave, athletic and defiant, and their "leader" (Lisa Rinna) is a beauty. But their expertise in guns, knives and explosives (and the similar expertise of two male geologists they meet later) is never explained - the believability of the whole story is nil. Action scenes and production values are nothing much to speak of, either. This film is recommended only to the most undiscriminating fans of the genre. (*)

My review was written in October 1988 after watching the film on Forum video cassette.

Producer-out-of-a-suitcase Harry Alan Towers comes up with one of his wackier efforts in "Captive Rage", an actioner set in the mythical South American nation of Parador (Paul Mazursky, please note) but lensed unconvincingly in Africa.

Pic, variously named "Fighting Fire with Fire" and "Fair Trade", stars an enthusiastic Oliver Reed as renegade Gen. Belmondo, hiding in the remote veldt of Parador with his troops. He's hopping mad when U. S. Drug Enforcement Agency topper Robert Vaughn has his son arrested as a drug kingpin. Reed retaliates by having a planeful of coeds, including Vaughn's daughter Lisa Rinna, hijacked and diverted to his camp.

The women are tortured as Reed demands his son he freed within 72 hours or 10 femmes will bite the dust. People get fed to piranhas, Rinna dn her pals escape and villainess Claudia Udy (usually cast as a vulnerable victim in pics like these) torments a few girls until an angry Rinna returns and gives Reed what-for.

Among the pic's sillier elements is the instant transition of girls from Loyola Marymount into dead-eye shots accomplished with automatic weaponry, mowing down Reed's soldiers with ease.

Formula of women in bondage clearly is still in vogue, but "Captive Rage" has little to offer in the way of novelty once its oddball setting is established. Tech credits are fine.

A really bad and cheesy B-movie action flick, shot in South Africa masquerading as South America. Oliver Reed gives a hilariously hammy turn as a drug baron who kidnaps a bus full of American college girls, only to have them escape from his prison camp and wage war on the guards. Expect a cheesy RAMBO copy with female heroes and you'll be there, and there's the requisite rape and nudity from the prison scenes too. Robert Vaughn co-stars and Reed's accent is indescribably bad.